Objections to John Rawls’s difference principle


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Version: version 5? (27th April 2026, Sen objections added and Rothschild; slumming it and trickle down objections added in v4; earlier versions in 2021 and 2023)


The difference principle. John Rawls’s difference principle says that the economy should be organized to maximize the gains for the worst-off group, on the condition that basic liberty rights and fair equality of opportunity are secured. For example, faced with a choice of a capitalist and a centrally-planned economy, we should prefer the one in which individuals in the worst-off group are wealthier. Some commentators argue for an interpretation which is less focused on wealth (Seeger 2011), but I shall not detail this interpretation here. The objections below are in chronological order. Note that the list is not exhaustive; and that I have generally omitted much-discussed objections, objections to do with Rawls's original position arguments for the difference principle, and to do with its relationship to other principles. (See here for Robert Nozick’s objections.)


The penny objection. A certain policy would make the better placed much wealthier (or a policy would reduce their wealth considerably). Given the difference principle, whether the policy is just may depend on slight changes it would bring for the worst-off. For example, if the policy would increase their wealth by a mere penny, whereas alternatives would leave them the same, then it is just. But the objector thinks, “If there is something making a policy leading to large wealth increases for the better placed just, it is not a penny increase for the worst-off.” Similarly, if there is something making it unjust, it is not that it leads to a penny decrease for the worst-off, whereas alternatives leave them the same. Rawls himself presents the penny objection, or material interpretable as it; but says that it is unrealistic, given the place of the difference principle within his overall theory of justice (p.157).


J.E.J. Altham’s social groups objection. Altham presents a table depicting the effects of an economy 1 and an economy 2 on three groups, in light of which the difference principle says choose economy 2. But it is possible to divide up the same people into social groups differently, merging two of the groups, and then the difference principle says choose economy 1. Altham proposes a revision to cope with this problem.


Amartya Sen's number-overridden objection. In his 1979 "Equality of What?" Tanner lecture, Amartya Sen observes that applying the difference principle ignores the number of people whose interests are overridden in favour of improving the position of the worst-off. A switch from economy A to B may slightly improve the position of the worst-off at the expense of many people in-between worst and best off! (This has some similarities to the levelling-down objection to egalitarianism: that valuing only strict equality will allow one to bring everyone down.)


Amartya Sen's conversion objection. The difference principle is conceived as concerning wealth or wealth and income or sometimes wealth, income, and the social bases of self-respect. You want these to pursue your plan in life, but Sen notes that different individuals can differ in their ability to convert wealth and income into what they desire, even if it is the same thing desired. For example, A and B have the same plan in life and are members of the worst off group, so receive the same government income, applying the difference principle, but A is better able to pursue their plan in life from this. (E.g. B does not know where to purchase cheap mobile phone and computer equipment.) The focus should not simply be on money given but what an individual can do with it.
 
Christine Swanton’s not-a-principle-of-justice objection. The difference principle is supposed to be a principle of justice, such that if it is correct, institutions are unjust when they violate it. To be a principle of justice, on the traditional criterion, it must be an interpretation of “a just scheme of distribution gives each his or her due.” To be an interpretation, it must, amongst other things, provide a way of filling in the details of the proposition: if you are part of the relevant group to which the principle applies and you have characteristic C, then you are owed A. However, for any C and A, it is not contradictory to conceive of two individuals who have C, yet for it to be better, given the aim of improving the situation of the worst-off, for only one to receive A (p. 421). In which case, the difference principle is not a principle of justice, by the traditional criterion. Rawls believes his own criterion for being a principle of justice is compatible with this traditional criterion. 


D.W. Haslett’s choices over time objection. Haslett presents a table in which three economic choices are to be made by a society over time, but members are not aware at the time of choice 1 what choice 2 will involve and likewise not aware at the time of choice 2 what choice 3 will involve. If they apply the difference principle to each choice, then when we add the gains of the choices we find that the worst-off group is actually worse off than if each choice is determined by the principle of choose whichever option produces the maximum increase for all groups combined.


Roy Weatherford's (and Richard Arneson's?) slumming it objection. My name for it. The difference principle tells us to prefer one economic system over another if it is better for the worst off, as long as other prior principles are realized. But such a principle does not rule out people who received elite education intentionally dropping down to a lower class level, in terms of wealth, and living off government benefits, which come with the preferred economic system. They are the undeserving poor.


Derek Parfit/John Broome’s ethnic groups objections. Suppose that in India, in 1800, we are choosing between three constitutions which give two groups equal amounts of other primary goods, but differ in terms of the wealth that results: on constitution (1), the Indians get 100 and the British do too; on constitution (2), the Indians get 120 and the British 110; and on constitution (3), the Indians get 115 and the British 140. Since the lowest anyone gets is 115 with constitution 3, which is higher than 110 and 100, the difference principle is meant to favour constitution 3. Parfit and Broome observe that it is mistaken to assume that the same individual could occupy the worst-off position in all systems, so that we can ask which they would prefer, for in (2) it is a British and in (3) an Indian. Various arguments of Rawls assume this, says Broome, though not his main one. Once we abandon the assumption, Broome and Parfit think, we must compare the interests of the different groups in a utilitarian way, contrary to Rawls’s intentions. And if there are many more Indians than British, Parfit and Broome find it unlikely that (3) is better. (However, culturally, I am not sure how good the fit is between utilitarianism and India.)


Joseph Raz’s satiability objection. This is an objection Raz suggests rather than makes. He distinguishes satiable from insatiable principles. Satiable ones are ones regarding which there is a possible situation in which they have been fulfilled, e.g. feed the hungry. Raz thinks that at the foundation of morality are satiable principles. Although he does not focus on Rawls’s difference principle to illustrate his point, there is a suggestion that one cannot start by saying that at the foundation of the morality of institutions is the principle “Be just,” as Rawls does, and coherently end up with the difference principle as a requirement of justice, because “Be just” is a satiable principle and the requirement to organize the economy so as to maximize the position of the worst-off is insatiable (pp. 241-244). (Perhaps it is satiable, but we cannot know when we have reached the limit, though this may not help much.)


Peter J. Steinberger’s desert contradiction. Some people have character traits that are valued. Rawls thinks that they do not deserve these traits – they have been subject to good fortune, in what they inherited, for example, or the upbringing they were subject to – and so the distribution of such traits is morally arbitrary, and so we should not be rewarding people on the basis of these traits. According to Steinberger, this explains why Rawls does not allow a person to appeal to character traits of theirs when arguing for principles of justice. However, the difference principle allows us to reward people on the basis of arbitrarily distributed character traits (pp. 60-61). For example, if there is a need for tall buildings and this will benefit the worst-off, but fear of heights is common, we can pay more to people who lack this fear. (I guess Rawlsians will say that it is just to reward a person for a given trait when this is not the ultimate aim of the reward, rather it is a means to a just end: improving the lives of the worst-off group. This reply is questionable given that Rawls is already against indirectly rewarding fortunate individuals, using a laissez-faire system say.)


Stephen W. Ball’s historical objection. Rawls, amongst other things, tries to explain why it is rational for talented members of society to accept a principle that favours the worst-off. Ball presents Rawls as arguing that the talented want a satisfactory life, a satisfactory life requires the stable cooperation of the less talented and their stable cooperation requires a fair political system, which the difference principle is part of, hence it is rational for the talented to accept it. Ball makes the objection that there is evidence from history that there are stable unfair schemes (pp. 171-172).


Steven Wall’s just savings objection. The just savings principle requires that each generation saves a basic amount for future generations. The most defensible ground Rawls offers for this principle is that individuals would want to benefit from the savings of earlier generations. But Wall thinks that there are realistic examples in which it makes sense to accept a small decrease in what the worst-off has in one generation in order to gain more in the next (p.84). Can one not object that the justification of principles of justice requires selecting them while ignoring certain factors, such as which generation one is in, and that then one would worry about being in a worst-off group which is worse than the next generation’s worst-off group? Wall observes that Rawls himself rules out this kind of maximize-the-minimum reasoning in relation to saving for the next generation (p. 85).


Roberto Alejandro’s first versus second principle objection. This is not an objection to the difference principle itself, rather to its place in an order (pp. 70-71). The government is supposed to first give adult citizens a set of basic liberties, such as freedom of speech, before trying to implement the difference principle; but one might have these liberties without having the means to exercise them – which the difference principle has the role of ensuring – in which case they are not meaningful. One can have freedom of speech without access to the Internet to communicate, or a right to property without the means to acquire property. (I suppose fair equality of opportunity might ensure these things, but it too is ranked below the liberty principle.)


Trickle-down economics again. An objection by left-wing commentators is that Rawls is no different from trickle down economics. According to the difference principle, we should favour an equal distribution of wealth unless an unequal distribution results in the worst-off having more than with an equal distribution. This will surely be applied to justify large wealth gaps and low taxes on the wealthy, in the belief that innovations, etc., trickle down to the worst-off group, making their lives better than given an equal system. Some Rawlsians defend against this objection (Kraynaya 2012; Reiff 2012).


Emma Rothschild. The choice of economy B over A, because it is better for the worst-off group, is to be based on a representative individual - or probably family if consistently thought out. The representative of the worst-off group in B is, or would be, doing better than the representative of the worst-off group in A. But Rothschild asserts: "it is impossible to know, in any quantitative sense, what an average or representative family would even be like." (Why?)


References
Alejandro, Roberto. 1998. The Limits of Rawlsian Justice. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
Altham, J.E.J. 1973. Rawls’s Difference Principle. Philosophy 48: 75-78.
Arneson, Richard J. 1990. Primary Goods Reconsidered. Noûs 24(3): 429-454.
(I learnt this objection from Walter E Schaller, who finds much the same slumming-it objection in Roy Weatherford, earlier.)
Ball, Stephen W. 1993. Maximin Justice, Sacrifice, and the Reciprocity Argument: A Pragmatic Reassessment of the Rawls/Nozick Debate. Utilitas 5: 157-184.
Haslett, D.W. 1985. Does the Difference Principle Really Favour the Worst Off? Mind 94: 111-115.
Kraynaya, Darya. 2012. Economics and Jurisprudence: Is John Rawls’ difference principle just another form of supply side economics and can it be applied effectively in modern society?  Manchester Student Law Review 1 (49). Available at:
https://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/law/main/research/MSLR_Vol1_5(Kraynaya).pdf
Parfit, Derek. (part of appendix H by J. Broome). 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press.
Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reiff, Mark R. 2012. The Difference Principle, Rising Inequality, and Supply-Side Economics: How Rawls Got Hijacked by the Right. Revue de Philosophie Économique 13 (2):119-173. Available at:
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-de-philosophie-economique-2012-2-page-119?lang=en
Rothschild, Emma. (edited by Sam Haselby). 2021. Slavery en famille. Aeon. Available at:
https://aeon.co/essays/family-history-and-the-problem-of-slavery-in-everyday-life
Schaller, Walter E. 2003. Rawls, the difference principle, and economic inequality. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (4):368-391. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/8289560/Rawls_the_Difference_Principle_and_Economic_Inequality
Seeger, M. 2011. A Critique of the Incentives Argument for Inequalities. Kriterion – Journal 
of Philosophy 25: 40-52. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/2995242/A_Critique_of_the_Incentives_Argument_for_Inequalities
Sen, Amartya. 1979. Equality of what? The Tanner lecture on human values. Available at:
https://ophi.org.uk/sites/default/files/Sen-1979_Equality-of-What.pdf
Steinberger, Peter J. 1989. A Fallacy in Rawls’s Theory of Justice. The Review of Politics 51: 55-69.
Swanton, Christine. 1981. Is the Difference Principle a Principle of Justice? Mind 90: 415-421.
Wall, Steven. 2003. Just Savings and the Difference Principle. Philosophical Studies 116: 79-102.
Weatherford, Roy C. 1983. Defining the least advantaged. Philosophical Quarterly 33, No. 130: 63-69.
(I learnt the objection from Walter E Schaller. "Who's Weatherford? It's Arneson's now!" Who said that?)